Showy: The headquarters of the Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus faith community in São Paulo. More than 10,000 people fit in the “Templo de Salomão”, a giant replica of Solomon’s Temple.
Image: Larissa Zaidan
Healing through the laying on of hands, speaking in tongues or exorcisms: In Catholic Latin America, zealots of new evangelical churches are gaining power in society and politics – also in our author’s family.
NJust a few years ago, Sundays in Bogotá, the Colombian capital, were dedicated to attending church services – Catholic, of course. Whether you were a devout believer or half-religious, in Colombia in the 1970s and 1980s, most families, including mine, had their weekends revolved around regular church attendance. In my childhood Sunday memories, I can feel the magnetism of the city’s many churches. If you drove to a mass in a densely populated area or in the jittery center of Bogotá, it was difficult to find a parking space near the church. And those who went on foot usually had to first march past a line of vendors or beggars strategically positioned on the streets adjacent to the churches.
Today, if you walk around Bogotá early on a Sunday, you will encounter the same excitement around places of worship as in the past: the traffic jams and the crowded parked streets around the places of worship; on the sidewalks in front, which are occupied by many in need; to the groups of people rushing from every direction to the sermon.
